Posts by Billy the Ex-Bethelite

16

The watchtower quoting itself as if it were scripture about weddings...

by EndofMysteries in

the 1997 wt, 4/15 page 26 is about weddings and more rules the wt tries to enforce to take the fun out of even weddings.

"while a disfellowshipped person could be allowed to attend the talk at the kingdom hall, the watchtower of april 15, 1984, said: it would be unfitting to have in the wedding party people who are disfellowshipped or whose scandalous life-style grossly conflicts with bible principles.

- isn't that funny?

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

WT thinking is very inbred. Promotion is based on thinking "inside the box". And at headquarters, WT articles are based on reworked previous WT articles or on talks written by Teaching. But Teaching bases many of those talks on quotes from previous WT publications and previous talk outlines. Comments are to be taken just from the study article under consideration... not with any quotes from "outside sources" because that's wasting precious time.

So what happens? You get extremism where the writer, or more often the local elders or CO, go beyond what was previously written to make a fence to protect the previous boundary. Then another guy adds another fence to protect the fence that's protecting the boundary. So you wind up with a bunch of rules to make a wedding more "spiritual"... and boring.

What else happens? You have these kids at a "spiritual gathering" where they drink Kool Aid and play Bible games. But then they sneak away and lead "double lives" because the JW life is horrible. And you also have these pioneers that have the appropriately boring weddings... and have an 8 lb. "premature" baby shortly after they get married.

60

Anybody have ideas about the double slit experiement with particles, how they react based on a human mind observing them?

by EndofMysteries in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpeprq7ogc.

that's just crazy, that if the particles are being monitored and data recorded, they act exactly as we 'think' they should act.

however if they are not being monitored and no way to watch them, then they act completely different and more random.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

adamah: "BTW, many people don't understand that Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment"

Great. Now you tell me. Do you realize how much poison and radioactive material you could have saved me?

But then, I'm an engineer, not a physicist. So this discussion has me perplexed between the old expression, "A watched pot never boils," and the QM nulite, "If you're not watching the pot, none of it exists." And I'm all, like...

60

Anybody have ideas about the double slit experiement with particles, how they react based on a human mind observing them?

by EndofMysteries in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpeprq7ogc.

that's just crazy, that if the particles are being monitored and data recorded, they act exactly as we 'think' they should act.

however if they are not being monitored and no way to watch them, then they act completely different and more random.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

EoM, The last link about partial electron charges seems unrelated. No mention of two slit experiment or wave properties.

"The easiest way to explain is the video animation..."

I don't need an "easy way". We covered a chapter per week in my QM class, with weekly quizzes. Just because I got a B in that class doesn't mean I need things "dumbed down" with cartoons and little words. LOL.

There's lots of bizarre stuff in QM (particularly if we were discussing quantum entanglement). And like I said, I don't consider myself an expert on QM. But when the assertion is that only the difference between having film in the camera and not having film in the camera completely changes the results of an experiment from straight line results to random chaos, I hoped there would be some kind of proof.

It sounds to me like some theoretical physics and philosophy (and religion) has gotten confused in the mix.

35

"How can girls guard against temptation in this sex-crazy world?"

by Apognophos in

this is from the questions from readers in the 12/15/61 watchtower.

i present it unabridged and without comment.

your own comments, however, are welcome.. "when a girl reaches the age of puberty or physical maturity, her body has developed in the matter of sex more than in the mind.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Here's the picture and caption that should have gone with that article:

6

Wait!wait! But I DO want people to have a merry Christmas!

by stillin in

jw
friends

is it really sharing in their wicked ways to bid people well wishes on their holiday?

i mean, i'm not doing christmas myself, but if they want to have it, what's wrong with saying "enjoy!".

witnesses extend best wishes to newlywed pagans all of the time, even though they know that the marriage is a godless, heathen, false-worship-filled union of sex-driven materialistic people.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

48

To all JWN Members

by cantleave in

jw
friends

have a wonderful xmas.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

No, YOU have a wonderful Xmas!

You're not the boss of me!
I'll have a miserable, lonely Christmas/Pantsmas if I want, so I don't need anybody else telling me what to do!
So, THERE!

LOL

60

Anybody have ideas about the double slit experiement with particles, how they react based on a human mind observing them?

by EndofMysteries in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpeprq7ogc.

that's just crazy, that if the particles are being monitored and data recorded, they act exactly as we 'think' they should act.

however if they are not being monitored and no way to watch them, then they act completely different and more random.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

I'm trying to find the sources for the Science Daily article. It seems to be a summation of an article in Nature that was based on research from Weizmann Institute. My searches aren't returning the source. This statement is puzzling:

"The quantum "observer's" capacity to detect electrons could be altered by changing its electrical conductivity, or the strength of the current passing through it."

Yet, it also says:

"Apart from "observing," or detecting, the electrons, the detector had no effect on the current."

Sounds contradictory.

60

Anybody have ideas about the double slit experiement with particles, how they react based on a human mind observing them?

by EndofMysteries in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpeprq7ogc.

that's just crazy, that if the particles are being monitored and data recorded, they act exactly as we 'think' they should act.

however if they are not being monitored and no way to watch them, then they act completely different and more random.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

EoM, I'm well acquainted with the two slit experiment. I did a scan of the links and tried a word search, but didn't find what you described as far as the results of an experiment changing simply because there was or wasn't film in a camera:

"they then did it using the sensors and having them turned on, but just having the tape or the record feature turned off so it wouldn't record the data. When they did that so they couldn't see how the particles would shoot and what direction, it did the random chaotic pattern. When the sensors still turned on then recorded so they could analyze, it then went in a straight line as would be expected.

"So they used the measuring instrument in both cases, the only variable was if it was recorded or not. The record feature did not at all touch or interfere with it."

I was hoping to find an explanation for how they couldn't see the particles and what direction they went, yet they knew that there was a random chaotic pattern? How did they "know" without seeing? And the wave pattern isn't really random or chaotic, it's geometry and probability. The last link introduces the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and touches on several aspects of QM. I'm just not seeing this as anything as amazing as, say, Keyboard Cat.

Have I been blinded by the math such that I don't see QM as "wow" anymore? Now that I understand exactly how lasers and microwave ovens work, all the mystery and wonder is gone from life.

LOL... not really.

60

Anybody have ideas about the double slit experiement with particles, how they react based on a human mind observing them?

by EndofMysteries in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpeprq7ogc.

that's just crazy, that if the particles are being monitored and data recorded, they act exactly as we 'think' they should act.

however if they are not being monitored and no way to watch them, then they act completely different and more random.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

"You're likely just jealous of what clearly is an immensely gifted feline, a talented tickler of the ivories!"

Keyboard Cat beat me out of a gig playing in the dark corner of a coffee shop, so of course I'm bitter. Given the chance, I might try a two slit experiment on that feline to check it's wave/particle properties.

129

They are Definitely Attacking "Higher Education"

by XBEHERE in

jw
friends

a friend of mine recently had his co visit and in the elders meeting the co out-right asked the question: how are the friends doing in your cong.

as regards pursuing higher education?

the co continued...you know in view of all the counsel from the slave regarding the dangers.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

"Satanic degree and became an engineer, or a teacher, or a scientist or God forbid, a doctor"

Aren't the COs building their own cars now, rather than using vehicles designed by people with "worldly higher learning"?